Ashley Park credits comedy and her boyfriend for helping her through health scare
Ashley Park has always been a fighter, and now she is opening up about her cancer diagnosis from years ago and her recent septic shock scare.
The "Joy Ride" actress, who survived leukemia -- a type of blood cancer -- in her teenage and young adult years, told Cosmopolitan for the magazine's fall 2024 cover story she doesn't regret in being public with her cancer experience.
"It was such a big part of what was happening with me, and it was going to affect me forever," she said. "If people didn't know that, it would feel false in some kind of way."
Park was also open about her recovery earlier this year from septic shock, a more dangerous form of sepsis. Sepsis is an "overactive and extreme response to an infection," according to the National Institutes of Health, while septic shock is a "life-threatening medical emergency" that "can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and even death" without prompt recognition and treatment.
The Broadway star, who earned a Tony nomination for her role in "Mean Girls," said she first got sick with tonsillitis -- inflammation of the tonsils in the back of the throat usually caused by viral or bacterial infections -- while on vacatiton with her boyfriend, her "Emily in Paris" co-star Paul Forman, in the Maldives for New Year's Eve.
"When I woke up in the hospital ... they said, 'You have septic shock.' And I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I am shocked I have sepsis!'" she said, crediting comedy for helping her through difficult times.
"As an adult, I understand what coping mechanisms are. Stuff I didn't know when I was a teenager. And even though both of the extreme illnesses I've had have been such flukes in a way ... I feel lucky, actually. It's been kind of a miracle how I've recovered."
Park said the experience taught her that she was pushing herself too far and not listening to her body.
"Now, I'm thinking about my future and asking, 'Am I putting myself in a position where I'm going to be able to do my best?' That starts with my health," she explained. "I'm getting back to my old self. I look and feel better, and I'm trying to stay as stable as I can and keep the same energy that people expect."
Park also credited Forman for helping her through the medical emergency.
"I don't think I would've made it without him," she said, referring to her boyfriend. "Everybody else was on the other side of the world from us."
